We have a crawlspace under a portion of our house and the floor is very cold above it. I set out to add some insulation to try to reduce heat loss and improve comfort.

Our new house has two traditional wood burning fireplaces with masonry chimneys. We had them cleaned and inspected, which revealed significant damage to the mortar in the joints between the chimney tiles. Given the high cost to repair, the inefficiencies or traditional wood burning fireplaces, and that we have so much firewood on our property, I decided to install a wood burning insert instead.